220 AN ANCIENT HAUNT OF THE CERVUS MEGACEROS ; 



the extinct naammalia, of which evidence of their familiarity to 

 the men of the Neolithic period is abundant. It is indeed worthy of 

 note that, while the ingenious artists of central Europe's Reindeer 

 period have left wondrously graphic carvings and drawings of the 

 mammoth, the fossil horse, and of the reindeer and other cervidse, 

 no very clearly recognizable drawing of the great fossil deer has been 

 found. It has indeed been assumed to be the subject of more than 

 one representation of a large horned deer, but the identification is at 

 best doubtful. This is all the more noteworthy, as the characteristics 

 of the great deer are such as could not fail to attract the notice of an 

 artist capable of so successfully representing the salient features of the 

 reindeer, as illustrated in familiar engravings of it, such as that from the 

 Kessei'loch, Schafi'hausen, traced on a piece of one of its own antlers. 

 If the engravings assumed to represent the Cervus megaceros are 

 indeed efforts at its depiction, their less definite character may be due 

 to the rarer opportunities for studying an unfamiliar subject. 



But if, as Sir W. R. Wilde, says, no native Irish name has been dis- 

 covered for the great fossil deer, an ingenious identification of it has 

 been assumed with one of the objects of the chace referred to in the 

 Niebelungen Lied. There, after the hunter has slain a bison, an elk, 

 and four strong uruses, he crowns his feats with the slaying of a 

 fierce sclieUh. It is no sufficient argument, against such identification 

 that the poem abounds with allusions to fire-dragons, giants, pigmies, 

 and other fanciful creations. The " lusty beaver," the elk, " the ravin 

 bear," and other contemporary, though now extinct, animals of Scot- 

 land, are introduced in the fanciful vision of " The King's Quair:" 



"With many other beasts diverse and strange." 

 But any reasons adduced for identifying "the fierce schelch" of 

 the Niebelungen Lied as the Cervus megaceros are sufficiently 

 vague and slight ; and so far the matured opinions of ai-chseologists 

 appear to coincide with those of the geologists, that this extinct 

 deer did not coexist with man in Ireland. 



But, whatever be the ultimate conclusion as to the period of its final 

 disappearance there, no doubt is entertained as to this extinct 

 deer having been contemporaneous with palaeolithic man in western 

 Europe, and even in England. Only two or three traces of its 

 remains have been found in Scotland ; and if in Ireland — seemingly 

 its latest special habitat, — it had finally disappeared before the advent 

 of man there ; the results are significant in reference to the period of 



